Back on track by Christmas

The Australian Rail Track Corporation says it is confident it can have trains back on the damaged Boggabri North West rail line by Christmas.

Last Wednesday six carriages of a fully loaded coal train came off the tracks causing extensive damage to the Coxs Creek Bridge.

No freight or passenger movement has been possible since, and detailed investigations of the repair work needed have been delayed while the damaged wagons were removed.

The Office of Transport and Safety Investigation started its own investigation into the accident last week, sending two investigators to the site.

The ARTC says in the last 48 hours its crews have been able to have a closer look at the damage.

The organisation's Executive General Manager of Hunter Valley, Alec MacKenzie told the Morning Show there are no obvious signs of track fault or problems with the rolling stock.

He says the ARTC did conduct some maintenance of the track about four days before the derailment, but he's confident it did not impact on the accident.

"It was a whole series of inspections, at that stage we did tamping, which is compressing the ballast around the sleepers,"

"The delay in giving a forecast related to the fact that we needed to get experts to have access to the track, to investigate the state of the piers and the beams, those guys couldn't access the track until a few days after the incident because the site was unsafe. When they did access it they worked 24/7 to come up with a recovery plan, which we signed off on yesterday.

"Four of the piers were damaged, two of which we have had to demolish, which we did yesterday and we are going to replace those, and of the steel beams that carry the track/rail six are damaged beyond repair, some are recoverable and one needs repairs.

"We got some heavy machinery in, we worked all through yesterday and completed it late last night. We currently have some detailed designed which we had approved, we have other material on the way, we will build two new piers in situ an some of the damaged one we will shroud them in concrete to make sure they are safe. We have to do some earth works to extend or fill in part, but at this stage in time we are very confident we will achieve the Christmas date

Mr MacKenzie says the repair bill will end up being a seven figure number.

The Morning Show also spoke to Marketing Grain and Warehouse Manager Aus cotton, Peter Webb, Angus Trigg from Grain Corp, and the General Manager of Narrabri Shire Council Pat White.

The NSW Government has sent a senior Transport official to co-ordinate the response to situation

Tony Gausden arrived in Narrabri yesterday, he says he's concentrating on the logistics of getting the freight moving.

He says his focus is co-ordinating both road movements to take the grain and chick peas down to Port Botany.

"We are trying to build up to 60 container movements a day, that could build up to 88 a day"

"An additional eight trucks from Victoria are being brought up to the region to help move the freight. It's expected they'll go down by D-double to Tamworth to an existing freight site or a site at west Gunnedah.

"Roads and Maritime Services will monitor the impact of the additional freight movement on the roads, but most trucks will stay within the weight limits."

He says they are still in discussions with the coal companies about their situation.

Meanwhile a small group of demonstrators rallied outside Whitehaven's Boggabri office today calling for coal mines to compensate farmers impacted by track derailment.

Organiser, Johnathon Moylan says the group wants Whitehaven to compensate wheat, pulse and cotton farmers for potentially $150 million in losses from the blocking of the rail line and to pay for the cost of the Cox's Creek bridge reconstruction.

A spokeswoman for Whitehaven says the track is owned by ARTC and Whitehaven is a customer like all other rail users.